Why ‘The Walking Dead’ Speaks to Scary Economic Times

Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) in the fourth season premiere of “The Walking Dead.”

“The Walking Dead” returns Sunday night, and while the horror show was notably snubbed by the Emmy people (just one nomination, for makeup) it’s a ratings monster for network AMC. It isn’t just the network’s top rated show, or one of the top-rated shows on cable. It’s one of the top rated shows on television period, and while the Emmy adulation went to “Breaking Bad,” even that dark show can’t match the ratings for “The Walking Dead.”

What makes “The Walking Dead” different lies in the humanity at the center of this show about monsters. It isn’t really about special effects or the supernatural. It’s about a small-town sheriff, a battered wife, a pizza-delivery boy, a backwoods hayseed, and a God-fearing farmer. At its heart, “The Walking Dead” is a show about a group of ordinary people trying to survive in a world that has suddenly and violently changed on them.

That resonates in a nation where millions of people have had their lives suddenly and violently changed over the past five years. That’s right–this show about zombies hits home because it echoes the terror many of us feel about our jobs, Wall Street and Washington.

“It’s like a mirror of how we evolve through life,” said Melissa McBride, who plays Carol Peletier, said of the show. “How do we deal with these circumstances that aren’t compatible with the way things were? How do we boot back up and survive?”

There are millions of people still considered “long-term unemployed,” whose odds of getting another job drop every day they’re unemployed. Millions more have simply quit the labor force, given up even looking for a job anymore. Their numbers are at generational highs.

Wage growth overall has risen since the recession’s depths, but the vast majority of those gains have gone to a disproportionately small group at the top. For most people, their wages still haven’t recovered.

Look, we don’t want to overstate this case. The biggest reason “The Walking Dead” is so popular is because it’s a very well produced, acted, and written show. The series captivates viewers with its unrelentingly gore, and the way it takes special joy in dreaming up new, horrifying ways to scare its viewers (and kill off its terrified characters). But is it any wonder the travails of a group of bedraggled survivors resonate in a nation where so many have been under duress for so long?

For the characters on the show, the challenge is learning how to live in a new (and terribly dangerous) world. For Ms. McBride personally, the show has changed her life, since it’s the first time she’s ever been part of a regular cast. Speaking of herself and her character on the show, Ms. McBride said “she and I have both had to take, it seems like, a really sharp curve, a really hairpin turn in our lives that we’ve had to navigate very carefully. There are parts of me I have to shut down and reboot.”

“All of us see something in these people,” said Dr. Joanne Christopherson, a social sciences professor at the University of California Irvine, and one of four professors running an online course this fall dedicated to exploring the world of “The Walking Dead.”

To Christopherson, the show is about far more than just zombies. It’s about a group of people under incredible strain, and how they respond to that strain. She credited the writers, as well, for getting a lot of the social interactions right. “The writers did their homework.” The characters on the show aren’t perfect, they aren’t noble. They make mistakes; Rick Grimes, the central character, she noted, makes mistakes that nearly get his entire group of followers killed.

“I think the zombies are a plot device,” she said.

Over the course of the show’s first three seasons, the characters – the ones that haven’t been killed at least – have all changed dramatically, and none more so than Ms. McBride’s Carol, who went from being a battered wife in the opening episodes, to becoming one of the leaders of the survivors’ group. But even adapting to a new world doesn’t insure survival – for the character or the actor.

There is no show that puts its characters at risk as much as “The Walking Dead.” The body count is high. Through its first three seasons, the writers have killed off a number of main characters. It lends a tremendous amount of realism to the show, but it’s not something Ms. McBride thinks about very often.

“From day one,” she said, “I didn’t know if I’d survive an episode. So you’re grateful to live another day, and that’s the message of this show and of life.”

That’s a message that hits people, especially when so many can’t see what tomorrow will bring.